Bright North Star
by NightSkyDragonfly
Summary: After the dispersal of ThunderClan under the tyrant Thistleclaw, Poppydawn and Windflight's daughters Firepaw and Icepaw embark on a seemingly instinctual journey that's actually guided by StarClan. With a prophecy to fulfill, they won't be sacrificing...


**A/N: **This is what would have happened to ThunderClan if Thistleclaw had been granted deputyship. For those of you who have read Bluestar's Prophecy, you know that Poppydawn's mate is Windflight and let's say that they stuck together after ThunderClan dispersed.

This is about their daughters and their "quest" to reach place their parents in StarClan guide them to. They pick up quite a few kittypets on the way, and sorry they are introduced very quickly and there will be no romance in this one-shot. It might be a two-shot it you Warrior fans review though.

_**A flame-colored she-kit blinked her eyes blearily, twitching her ears to dislodge scraps of burnt moss. She coughed. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. The fire!**_

_Firekit bounced excitedly around her mother's paws. Poppydawn smiled resignedly as Icekit, her other daughter, joined in, plumy tail flying. This would be the first day her kits met their father, and they had been unstoppable ever since they had woken up._

_Firekit pricked her ears at the sound of rustling outside their bramble bush den. Her sister's eyes widened in anticipation, but their mother had smelled danger._

"_Fire!"_

_Poppydawn immediately responded to her mate's warning, scooping up Icepaw and vanishing into the hazy air. Smoke soon billowed from the leaf litter on the den floor. Firekit then saw a striped silver tom lunging through the flames for her, but he was stopped by a burning branch that crashed near his paws. _

_The kit's father frantically gazed through the building flames, trying to gain a last glimpse of his daughter, but Firekit's vision had already blackened as she toppled wearily onto a patch of pebbles._

"_**Daddy?"**_

_**For the first time, she noticed the destruction around her. The once lush oaks and sycamores were now twisted and charred into dark claws. All the ferns had been ignited and burned to a crisp, a crisp Firekit was now padding on. Here and there some patches of moss still smoldered.**_

_**A whimpering reached her ears. Peaering carefully around a singed tree stump, Firekit saw a terrible sight. Poppydawn and her unknown father were lying in a puddle of muddy water. Between them, shielded from harm, was Icekit. Firekit's silver-white sister was mewling and struggling to escape the prison of their parents' stiff bodies.**_

"_**Icekit? Are you alright?"**_

_**Having finally extricated herself from Poppydawn's tail, Icekit whispered, "Come here, Firekit. Why aren't they moving?"**_

_**Together the sisters stared sadly at the glazed amber and green of their parents' still-open eyes.**_

"Icekit!"

Firepaw's sister stirred irritably. "Beetle-brain, the name is Ice_paw_ now. Remember what Poppydawn said about changing our names when we reach six moons and when we can fight and hunt and…."

Firepaw sighed.

"Just dreaming again. Have you thought about it? We don't even know our father's name!"

Icepaw rose and wrapped her tail around her russet sister,

"You know, it doesn't matter now. And since we never knew him, it hurts less. Now go to sleep. We need to get going tomorrow, to get to the lake.

The red apprentice sighed again. Their way of life was simply to ask loners and rogues what lay to the north, which was the direction both sisters felt bound to. She wanted to cry _No; it hurts more, not less! Where there should be warm, comforting memories of a happy family, there is an empty hollow. _Needless to say it wasn't lessened by that last gruesome image of father and mother, shielding one of their kits.

_Four moons later_

Firepaw and Icepaw padded wearily through a Twoleg carrion-place after a far-from-satisfactory meal of rat. Firepaw stopped to examine a fence, her tail flicking into her sister's nose, when a tiny bundle of screeching ginger-and-white fur erupted into view.

Icepaw's claws slid back into their sheaths once she noted the bell dangling from the cat's neck. Her sister noted that the screech wasn't a battle cry, but a scream of joy.

"I found you, I found you, I found you!" the hyperactive kit cried, bouncing around them like a frog after a flea.

Without stopping to take a breath, she plowed on, "You guys are fire and ice, destined to unite under the North Star, right right right right right? It's a prophecy, from StarClan, you know StarClan? Of course you do you're umffme…"

"Anyways, I'm Bright", the kit said, casually spitting some silver-white tail fur back at its disgruntled original owner.

"You certainly are", Firepaw remarked looking the still-bouncing she-cat. Bright had fur so white it was reflective, and that combined with her gleaming gold-orange patches and violently turquoise eyes she could definitely be described as bright.

"A kittypet", coughed Icepaw. Bright blinked calmly. Nothing fazed this strange, bubbly personality encased in a tiny cat body.

"After you're quite done staring, shall we be going?"

"Going?" the two sisters echoed.

Although a former house-pet, Bright was impressive. She couldn't compete with the long legs of Icepaw or the wiry muscles of Firepaw, but her reflexes were faster than lightning. She snatched the mouse the sisters chased to her with one paw in the blink of an eye. Her claws were short, strong, and wickedly curved, and she, surprisingly, could stand so perfectly still prey probably thought she was shiny tree stump.

Even more astonishing was her intense knowledge of StarClan and herbs. The bright splash of stars across a cloudless sky was called Silverpelt, where ancestors watched over their kits and grandkits for eternity.

"Do you think Poppydawn is watching us?" Icepaw whispered hopefully to Firepaw.

"I know she is", Firepaw replied firmly. "After all, she was once a Clan cat, and any cat who believed in the 5 Clans can go to Silverpelt."

Herbs. Oh the herbs Bright knew about. After taking one look at the sisters' scratched and raw pads, Bright instantly disappeared into the surrounding fields, returning with some squishy dark-green leaves clamped in her jaws. Firepaw and Icepaw were informed that they were dock leaves and ordered to rub it into their paws. When a rat got behind the leggy Icepaw and bit her hind leg viciously, Bright appeared with burdock root for the infection, cobwebs for bleeding, and horsetail for soothing. Firepaw had a horrible stomachache set in, and it was Bright who shoved first yarrow, then thyme down her throat, removing the bad mouse remains and calming the red apprentice's belly.

In short, there seemed to be nothing Bright couldn't do. Except deal with the opposite gender.

First to join the she-cats was Ray, a timid, frightened tom whose mother had been killed by a monster. Bright, usually hyper, cheerful, and kind, became cross and sullen, even while treating his numerous cuts and scrapes. Anything he did was not to her admittedly high standards. When he turned to wash his sandy yellow pelt, she spat that it would cause him more injury. While treating them, she complained that his fur was so dirty, she could not treat them without high risk of infection. The poor thing became more and more confused as Bright's mood changed rapidly, becoming more and more ruffled.

Then came Swift and Terry. Bright proceeded to, ahem, get her tail into more of a twist every time a tom joined the small group.

Now she was always stalking around, pulverizing prey as she ate it, and spitting at any cat who tried to speak to her. Her hunting was no longer an enjoyment, but a chore in order to "feed those useless kittypet lumps" even though she herself had once been a house pet, though with a full array of hunting capabilities. She flatly refused to teach them to fight, insisting that it would be a waste of her talent. Turning her nose up in distaste at the toms' lack of knowledge of StarClan, she constantly berated them on subjects in the Warrior code, such as not eating while hunting for the elders and queens. When they cautiously pointed out the distinct lacking of elderly cats or nursing females in their mini-Clan, she became cold, calm, and extremely dangerous.

Bright changed her name to Brightpaw one night at the half-moon, making herself the medicine cat apprentice. She declared to all the cats that it was partly because of herbs, and mostly because she detested the male gender and now had an excuse to stay away from them all together. Afterwards she dogged the newcomers about their names, nipping at their stubbornly attached collars (almost strangling them in the process). Then she forcefully christened them Raypaw, Swiftpaw, and Treepaw. She told Treepaw to stop whining ("At least it still _sounds_ like your name."), and then coldly started ignoring them for what was seeming to be the rest of her life.

Firepaw and Icepaw's Clan was suffering. After christening a batch of new arrivals Screepaw, Sunpaw, Lilypaw and Stormpaw, she returned to her aloof self, only talking to Firepaw, Icepaw, and Lilypaw. Although Sunpaw was a she-cat, she refused to accept what the others resignedly did and informed a startled Brightpaw that if she wouldn't talk to and care for the toms, she would not be talking to Sunpaw either. Firepaw secretly agreed with Sunpaw, but knew that voicing her feelings would result in a nasty cuff from Brightpaw's sharp claws.

As the cats continued north, the sky continually grew paler and harsher. The nights grew longer and the days shorter, leaving the apprentices huddled in shivering groups during the endless darkness and less time to keep traveling while it was light. The terrain melted from bronzed sycamores and aspens to pines and spruces to finally no trees at all. In the morning Firepaw, and early riser, woke up to heavily frosted grasses and uncomfortably brittle ground. It did not soften as the weak sun made its way through the sky.

All the cats were in sorry condition, thin and scraggly, but the toms and Sunpaw were definitely worse off. They had just barely grasped the concept of hunting, and while experts like Icepaw and Brightpaw were managing to catch a few meals a day, the lean hares and strong-winged ptarmigan were beyond their reach. It didn't help that Brightpaw adamantly refused to share.

Everyone had scratched pads, various bruises, and yowling stomachs, but the few herbs Brightpaw found were tiny, frozen, and almost completely useless. Her stand-as-still-as-a-tree-stump hunting technique didn't work well in this vast, tree-stump-less, unreadable sea of grass. Things were going wrong, so of course, right after they woke up to another frozen day, it started to snow. No one was even mildly surprised when Lilypaw took a tentative step into the slush, and immediately awakened a snoozing wolverine. The scent was foreign, but the thing seemed as big as a dog and twice as vicious, so the cats wearily angled to face this latest Arctic challenge.

They cats were wrong. The wolverine turned out to be about a dozen times more vicious than an average dog. After what seemed like days, the cats were covered with scratches, the frozen ground was torn up, and the wolverine was barely panting.

Raypaw's foreleg suddenly twisted in one of the icy ruts, and the enemy turned, bearing down on the terrified apprentice. Brightpaw was the nearest to the scene and time slowed down. The others were frantically yowling insults at the wolverine and nipping its tail, but Brightpaw only saw Raypaw. He was a tom, but also a Clanmate. He was ignorant, but also innocent. He was disliked, but she did not wish him death. Not if she could help it.

Brightpaw leaped. Her hooked claws connected solidly into the wolverine's shoulder, tearing fur and flesh. Then she angled her hind legs to shove Raypaw away as she landed. What she did not foresee was the now-crippled badger landing on her back before whimpering loudly and galloping away into the sleet.

By then, the _crack_ that was her spine snapping made no sense to her. What she saw was a huge gleaming Star above them, shining through the clouds. Her last thought: _Without me, they are united…fire and ice._

Her turquoise eyes glazed over as she peered into the early dawn sky, seeking eternal peace among the stars. _Fire and ice…_

Please review! I might have time, now that summer break is fast approaching, to make another chapter on their life without a medicine cat, their Moon-object, leader, deputy, etc. :D Have fun reading the Omens of the Stars books!


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